ABOUT P-VALLEY SEASON 2 — EPISODE 7.
Someone asked me last week if I would let my child watch P-Valley, and I thought hecks no! Then I paused and thought — well, would I? Here’s my conversation about P-Valley.
Season 2, Episode 7 amazed me for so many reasons. It is somebody’s story. What stood out to me was Mercedes’s cycle of circumstance. Here Mercedes THOUGHT she submitted her daughter to a better life only to be confronted by the consequences she did not want for Terricka and the understanding she did not have for her mother. Mercedes faced and accepted that her younger self was very aware and also very ignorant.
This Episode spoke to the hypocrisy some mothers have towards their daughters. At one moment, Mercedes’ mom was willing to pimp her out to get the bills paid. The next, she beat the shit out of her for growing up without her. Apart from her. Despite her. Mercedes’s mother smacked her because Mercedes was growing in a direction she could not control. How many mothers have protected a child abuser while shaming that same child for teenage pregnancy? What hypocrisy.
What truly hit home is the impact youthful decisions have on a person’s future. If Terricka decides to have her baby, she will delay so many of her opportunities. She doesn’t even know what SHE wants to do with her own life but will now decide the fate of another’s. Many teenage mothers know their children better than they know themselves. Read that again. Many brown teenagers must make life decisions before they know what life has to offer — working at eight years old — paying bills at fourteen. It is NOT a badge of honor but a bullshit cycle. Let children be children. If you can’t afford them, care for them, give them everything they need WITHOUT assistance from anyone else — spare them by not having them. I’m sticking to that statement.
Then there was Lil Homicide (thanks, uncle Clifford), aka Lil Murda and Uncle Clifford. Here Murda wants affection and discretion. With a personality and presence like Unc, privacy means “mind your bidness.” Uncle Clifford just fabulously is and undeniably remaining. Still, they want one another. Why does Lil Murda want prudence? I’ll let you argue the point below. Back in the day, if a white fell in love with a brown or vice versa, folks would die if caution went ignored. Still, I can relate to Uncle Clifford. I paid a high price to be me and to love who I love openly. I will NOT sit in the nose bleeds for anyone. Still, the heart wants what it wants. I want them both to be free, individual, and together. I’m interested in how this will play out because all this DL bullshit needs to stop. Love is not a sin. Sin ain’t even sin. Challenge me!
Still figuring Autumn out. Still figuring out Em Eye Crooked…. Still figuring out Diamond. In short, I would let my ‘age-appropriate’ child watch P-Valley. It speaks to real shit going on in the lives of so many just trying to make ends meet and become more than their surroundings. It depicts how poverty forces so many to act and stay in desperation. The unspoken traumas that leave our inner child stuck like chuck praying to be liberated from the repressed memory our adult selves forgot — shine through. This show sees life for the complex dance that it is and gives so many reasons why we need to have grace for the fucked up decisions impacting us that we know nothing about. EVERYONE has a story, and it isn’t personal. Nor is it fair. Be Kind!
And who knew Ernestine could sing? I did! P-Valley, don’t let anything happen to Ernestine. “I’m not the bitch I’m talking bout!” Oh, the one-liners in this show! Keep giving it to us, P-Valley. Toodles! Until the next Episode.
